Ordinarily, I don’t like speculative posts. At times I find them even counter-productive, because they can often wind people up with pie-in-the-sky “what-ifs,” but provide no real actionable items. So that’s not my intent here. Here I just wanted to throw out some ideas for viewing/releasing a film, and see what others think about them. What are the issues with them, could they even work, is anyone else doing them, etc. I’ve been reading a lot about “event” screenings and frankly so many of the ideas I see are just plain mundane. Bands, sponsors, gimmicks, none of this would ever make me go out to see someone’s film. None of these things strike me as particularly “event” worthy, except in a checklist kind of way.

Event Screenings

This week, I went to the TransmediaNYC Meetup.

I’m really glad I did. I wound up meeting some great people and hashing on some interesting ideas.

One of the things we talked about there was alternate viewing solutions. Typically, someone makes a film, you go to a theater, or you rent it, you sit and watch the movie happen. Then when you’re done, you talk about it with your friends maybe. But you are under no circumstances to talk about it during the movie.

That’s where I think we can have an interesting change. For instance, my fiance is an artist. And one of the things she does is video art. So I’ve been to see some of that with her. But one thing I’ve always thought would be interesting would be for the video art to have a real narrative. And I don’t mean each piece have a narrative of its own, but for all of the pieces to make up a narrative. I’m sure something like this exists in the art world already. Nikki, and other art-types, feel free to step in and tell me how far behind I am…

But I was thinking about it in regards to the “film” world. I think it would be insanely cool to have an entire film played out in a gallery, one screen per scene, say. Like maybe you have a bunch of HD TVs, each playing a scene from the film. Then, the audience walks about from scene to scene, taking in the story as they go. But they can also stop and chat about the scene they just saw in between, grab a drink, have a smoke. I like this social aspect. It’s almost like episodic TV, but the season is all in one room.

An alternate version of this would be to have the scenes placed randomly about the room. So that you don’t know what order to go in, and you have to put the story together as you go. Maybe by going back to previously viewed scenes to look for clues, or by keeping a little note-pad with you to keep track of what’s going on.

If you want to run wild with it, you can deliver specific scenes only to say, only mobile phones. So maybe a crucial piece of information that makes it all make sense only comes to you the next day at work.

What I love about this is the audience is an active participant. They have to work to put the story together. Which is fun, isn’t it? I mean, how much more fun was LOST when we first saw the numbers and everyone was trying to work out what it was all about? But it’s one of the things that also attracts me to Transmedia; this idea that the audience has to combine their imagination with the artist’s in order to tell the story.

What I also like about this stuff is it’s event-based. Which is something the DIY Usual Suspects talk about a lot. But this isn’t an event where you come, watch the movie, watch a band, maybe have a cocktail or two after, look at some sponsor’s crap, then leave. This is an event where you have to come with your brain turned on. You might stay here for hours, in this part-story-part-party. More than just a way to promote your film, this event becomes an alternate form of entertainment in its own right, something you really do have to show up for. I like this idea.

I also love the idea of filling in story details with live performances. Maybe there is a play incorporated into the evening. Or a dance, or some actors playing out a scene at one of the tables in the room. And you will only get that information if you are there. I guess this would be called another form of Transmedia. But then maybe you would tweet about that information and others would hear about it only second hand…so their experience of it is unique to them and yours to you. But again, this is something far more compelling to me, because it’s integrated with the story, and it’s genuinely a unique experience. And I guess that’s what I want to get to: creating events that people have to go to because those events sound amazing.

The Steps (a good-looking webseries, BTW) did a pretty cool release event-party. Quoted from Jawbone:

“At first, the thing that caught my eye was the promotion they were running around their release party … what they billed as a first of its kind ‘device party’ that featured live streaming of the first four episodes of the show via Ustream. Invited guests were to bring laptops and streaming video-capable phones to have the show delivered into the palms of their hands.  An ad-covered bus parked outside also allowed partygoers to hop onboard and view the world premiere from a passenger seat.”

This is similar to what I talked about above, but with people bringing their own viewing platforms instead of the venue providing them. This makes good sense, though for my money, I don’t quite get the idea of showing up to an event and then staring at my own computer. It’s like when I go to DIYDays and there are people just staring at their laptops and twittering the whole time. Why show up at all? So I think for the release party idea, I would probably try to push it to more group-oriented viewing, even though you do have the freedom to step away. But I like the idea.

Integrating Your Release

I guess the thing I’m struggling with is the fact that although so many people are trying to find new forms of distribution, it seems that the forms of entertainment remain largely fixed in their heads. It’s a feature film. It’s a web series. Etc.  And I wonder if, instead of questioning the “old” forms of distribution, maybe some of our answers lie more in questioning the “old” forms of filmed entertainment themselves. As I said above, I have absolutely no reason to go out and see a film “event” when the things at the event are bands, gimmicks and stuff.

So I was wondering if anyone had ever tried releasing a feature film both as a feature film and as a web series? Or perhaps as a web series first, and then a feature film. I know that there are aesthetic reasons why people wouldn’t want to do this. It might break up the continuity of their film. The film might not be parsable into webisode-sized chunks. Maybe it’s just because I like the idea of a series, that I somehow like this idea.

But what if you crafted a movie specifically to be this? I guess now we’re getting into questions of form. Many people have a pretty set idea of what comprises the form of a feature. But so many great TV shows that have overall arcs are watchable all in one sitting. Hell, I got the second season of THE WIRE at about 11PM one night, and could not stop until like 5 the next morning. So why not make a two hour web-series, then put it together as a feature film? Would this just kill the notion of being able to sell tickets to the latter? Or could you just make events out of the “feature” screenings, like I talk about above?

I am thinking about starting a screening series like this in NYC. Maybe do one and see how it goes. If interested in participating and experimenting with something like this, drop me a line.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Working with actors is probably my favorite part of making films.

One thing that can often happen to actors though, is what’s sometimes called “being in your head.”

This is generally the result of the actor trying to direct or somehow judge their performance as they are doing it. This is death to a performance. Especially on camera where there is nowhere to hide. Theater has enough built in artifice about it, that I think it’s easier to cover up this kind of thing. It’s not ideal, but I think a play performance is salvageable if an actor gets in his head. But not on camera. The camera sees all. And if you’re not there, everyone will know.

If I see an actor getting into their head and they can’t get out, one of the things I’ve been doing lately is removing all artifice from the situation. I tell them there are no characters, there is no scene, there is only actor A and actor B, in this room, right here, right now. And then I get them interacting on this very real, immediate basis.

For instance, while rehearsing something last Fall, I would take one of the actors aside and give him some specific actions to do toward another actor. These were pretty loopy, but when he did them as him in this room, right here, right now, the other actor suddenly reacted with truth and realism. She was genuinely surprised that Actor A was doing this crazy stuff. Which is exactly what her character was supposed to be in that scene. But she didn’t have to act. She just had to be there, and the circumstances outside her control worked on her to make her actually surprised. Taking the scene into a pure, real state of just you and me in this room, right here, right now, I was able to get the actors grounded in the reality of the moment. Then we started building up the scene again from that point of truth.

Another thing I like to do with films, is rehearse in as close to the actual environments as I can. Now this is obviously not possible in many cases. Locations can cost money, be time sensitive, etc.  But in some cases you can certainly do it.

We’ve rehearsed a scene on the subway, when that’s where the scene would take place. This caused the actors to settle into the behaviors they would really have in that situation. They didn’t have to pretend or “act.” They just had to be, and allow the naturally stimuli of that space guide their behaviors. When they thought people were listening to them, they would adjust, become quieter, etc. In one case there was actually a fight in the same car, and the actor had to continue with the scene under those actual circumstances. This meant she stopped and listened to the fight, as so many New Yorkers will. Then she went about her business. But being in that environment, where she could not control what was going to happen, really freed her up to just be in that that moment, in that space. And out of her head.

Last night, Feb 28th, the location was a deserted industrial section of Brooklyn. And the character was supposed to be alone in this area, in danger from some unknown assailants. In a case like this, it’s easy to set up the circumstances, and then throw stimuli at the actor. I might be down the block, making noises behind her. At one point, I might make noises as if I was running up to her and about to overtake her. This indeed caused real fear in her. Fear she had to really fight to control and achieve her objective.

These can sound like a tricks, and many directors have been accused of abusing actors to get performances out of them over the years. But I think it’s extremely valid to give the actor actual, physical stimuli to work with. And most importantly, stimuli the actor cannot control, so that they genuinely never know what’s going to happen next, thus are forced to be in the moment and out of their heads.

One of the incentives in our Kickstarter Campaign is early access to videos of our rehearsal process and techniques.

Canon 7D DSLR

Personally, I like the look we’re getting out of the 7D for this kind of stuff. It’s pretty natural, and the camera’s low-light capabilities mean you can often shoot only with practicals. The shot to the left uses:

• Cannon 28-70mm zoom 2.8, here stopped I think to about 4.0
• ISO 640
• 1/48 shutter
• Only the light you see in the room; light from the window and the lamp on his desk

The shot is slightly washed out in post to give it more of the look I want. I think it looks pretty natural and more cinematic than a standard video camera. It’s got a bit of softness, and combined with the wash out in post, it looks like maybe shot on not the best stock in the world. I’m actually adding some grain on top of it too, give it a little more character.

I hear a lot of talk about aliasing with the 7D. I guess I just don’t know what to look for, or maybe only use it in conditions that hide the issue, but I don’t really see it a lot. Meaning, the image I see is pretty pleasing to my eye, and not full of strange or ugly artifacts like aliasing, macro-blocking, etc.

Here are a couple more grabs from the 7D. These are from some interview segments we’re using to raise awareness of the film, and by design under better conditions:

I think this looks perfectly nice, except for the wee bit of focus issue I had due to the shallow DOF. In this case, I had let the camera auto-expose. The shot still came out beautifully clean, but you can see a little soft as I try to find the mark. When seen small it’s not an issue, but at full res noticeable.

But for my money, this is completely acceptable for interview shots, and probably most CU and medium shots. I think where the compression really shows its weakness is in wide shots, where there might just be way too much detail for the codec to deal with in a nice way. But my general philosophy these days is to use whatever camera works for the shot. If I intended on shooting a film with the 7D, and shooting it like a “normal” film, meaning trying to make the cinematography look nice, etc. then I would likely keep an HVX or something similar on set as well, to get the shots the 7D can’t. But in general, I know what I want out of this camera: low-light capability, low-profile, inconspicuous shooting, use of Canon lenses. And those things it delivers just fine.

Now look at this shot of our actress Leah, also being interviewed. She’s pretty yellow, because I screwed up and used a crappy light on her that wasn’t even 3200K. Pitfalls of this camera’s light sensitivity. You’re tempted to grab any old Ikea light you find laying around. Just make sure it’s not going to bite you in the ass.

But another thing I’ve heard a lot about the 7D is that the compression makes color-correcting very difficult. I guess this is probably true for heavy color-correction, which I’m generally not a fan of anyway, unless it serves a purpose in the film. I mean, my film EVIE is severely cc-ed, but it’s actually integral to the story.

In this case though, I was able to bring her back from the clutches of Jaundice and make her look pretty human again. It’s a pretty light cc with just the FCP three-wheel color corrector, but does the job, saves the shot, and makes it usable.

So all in all, I am pretty happy with the 7D and what it will bring to this shoot. I am also planning on shooting a short on it in January.

To my mind, any filmmaker just starting out who wants to make “films,” primarily his/her own work, and not client work for broadcast, etc. should get one of these DSLRs. This one, the 5D, the Panasonic GH1. They give a much closer approximation of a cinematic look than any video prosumer video camera out there right now. And the limitations are much less of a big deal on an “film” shoot than they would be on an event shoot  say, or a TV reality show shoot, anywhere where you need all of the conveniences of a conventional video camera. Combine the look they give with the stupidly low price they give it for and I think these things make the perfect tool for a beginning filmmaker. The only real beef I have with this camera is lack of monitoring. With say, an HVX, I’m used to shooting with the camera cradled in my arm, and looking down at the LCD. An articulating LCD and focus-assist would make this thing a dream. I guess the GH1 has a flip-out LCD…anyway, I know there are monitors we can get for this camera, but honestly, the minute you start tacking gear on top of it, the camera starts losing exactly what its best at – stealth. Not a problem on set I suppose, but for stealing those scenes I wrote to take place at the UN…

All Right, the fun stuff!

Surveillance Cameras

Okay, that’s all well and good about the 7D. Sure it’s useful in some situations and could be a good camera for shooting your stuff and making it look pretty good. But on THE LOST CHILDREN, we’re stepping up our game. That’s right, we’re going all out with the…surveillance camera.

Steve, our art director actually had some of these little wireless remote surveillance cameras. The stuff that guy has just laying around will boggle your mind. If you meet him, ask him about the bag of babies hanging by the front door.

Anyway, in some of the scenes, we wanted to see what a surveillance camera would see. So instead of trying to muck it up in post, we went for the real deal. These things have an awesome murkiness to the image, and you can add jumpiness and static to them just by interrupting the signal. Whenever I’d pass my iPhone near the receiver, I would get a little more fuzz and zigzag pattern in the video. Just like the iPhone mysteriously messes with my car radio, I guess. Yes, the iPhone likes to intimidate lesser electronics.

These cameras don’t record themselves, but they do have RCA outputs, so that you can record to say, a DVX as a deck, thus adding to the delicious image degredation they provide.

iPod Nano

The next thing we wanted to do was simulate a situation where someone might be spying on another person with a cell phone camera. Lacking a cell phone with video though, we used a new iPod Nano instead. Well, one thing about video technology now, is that it’s just too good. The Nano does put out some crappy, low-res video, but not crappy and low-res enough. It just wasn’t giving me the look I wanted. So I played around with it for a while, and finally settled on this. I exported it as an even lower-res web video, uploaded it to YouTube, hoping to further degrade the image, and then shot the YouTube video on a TV screen with a DVX set to 30p. It was only then that I started to see something about like what I wanted.
I haven’t settled on this stuff yet, so if anyone reads this and has some brilliant ideas about it, feel free to comment or email me with them, or drop a note through the form below.

Various Other Video Cameras

But I did carry on with this technique into some other videos. At certain points in the story, some characters record themselves on video and put these videos on the web. I’ve been having the actors do these by themselves, as they would be done, in order to give them as much a sense of the reality of the situation as possible. I’ve been working non-actors into the mix as well. But again, the video they’ turn in just wasn’t bad enough. Too clean, too good, too nice. I wanted the video to call some attention to itself, to insert itself between subject and viewer.

Plus, there’s an inherent creepiness brought by the obfuscation of the subject, by the fact that you cannot completely make out what you’re looking at, by the fact that you have to sort of meet the subject matter half-way and engage your mind to figure out what you’re seeing, and hopefully engage your imagination to fill in what you’re not.

This aspect has some bearing on our story, so I wanted to start working out how to express it visually.

]]> http://www.desperatecomfort.com/site/2009/11/cameras-and-camera-tests/feed/ 0 http://www.desperatecomfort.com/site/2009/10/proof-of-concept/ http://www.desperatecomfort.com/site/2009/10/proof-of-concept/#comments Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:04:02 +0000 mark http://www.desperatecomfort.com/site/?p=480 As you may or may not know, about a month ago, we stopped pre-production on our feature film, THE LOST CHILDREN. While working on some of the side content designed to go along with the film, we had the nagging feeling that that side content would be more interesting than the film itself. So we decided that the best course of action would be to stop and re-assess how we wanted to tell this story. We now know we made the right decision. And everyone involved with the project was supportive, and willing to give us some breathing room.

When we did this, we realized that we were embarking on completely new territory. Not only was this a different approach from our last short, but from every short we’d ever done. So the first thing we did was step back and look at what we needed to do. And the first thing was to see if we could even pull this off. So we assembled a small four-day shoot of a few scenes that could be used to create a ten minute proof of concept.

That is done and we think looks really good; good enough to give us the confidence to go forward with our planned re-imagining of the story.

One thing about the new approach a strict adherence to realistic performances. So we approached this four-day shoot much as the material would have been captured in real life. Meaning, the cameras were all in places they would have been in had the situations been real. For the most part, the actors were locked in the rooms with the cameras placed, and the crew outside. The actors were allowed to be alone in the rooms, as they would be in the actual scenes.

When it came time to cut the piece together, I looked at the material we’d shot and became momentarily panic-stricken. I was afraid that the piece would not look like certain other films, that it would not live up to expectations, that it would not conform to some pre-conceived notion in my head.

And that’s when it hit me that one of the whole points to this new approach was to allow that to happen. Allow the process to be much like it would be if this were all real. And what that meant, was looking through the footage I had and just letting it tell the truth. Don’t worry about making it exciting, or interesting, or fun, or any of that. Just tell the truth, and trust that the material is all of that in and of itself. Trust in the material. It’s easy to forget in film-making, because so many people are always trying to impress, or make the next big thing, or be edgy and hip, or whatever, that there is a constant pressure to keep up, to compete for attention.

So this is what I’ve taken away from this four day shoot. In addition to some material I am happy with; trust in the material and just tell the truth.

I’ve made this proof of concept available on Vimeo as a password-protected video. If you’re interested  in having a look, email me.

Traditionally, when making a film, there are lights all over the place, often right up in the actors faces. Often the actors are not allowed to move from pre-set positions, or their movement has to be very specifically prescribed to get the shot, the right camera angle, the right lighting, etc. It’s always a constant battle to get good, natural and truthful performances under these conditions; conditions that actively work against an actor leaving himself alone.

This term “leaving yourself alone” might be a little obscure to people who have no acting training. But basically it means acting as if no one is watching. I think when you are performing on stage, you have to be very aware that people are watching, because your performance has to reach all of the people watching with no external aids(sometimes there are mics in a theater). On camera acting is just the opposite. You have to behave as if no one is watching at all. Because in the world of the film, most of the time, no one would be watching the scenes. This is absolutely critical to a good film performance, I think. You don’t need to communicate anything to an audience because the camera will see every little thought that passes through your head. And in fact, if you’re ever on set with me, you’ll often see me giving the direction: “Just think the thoughts,” which means exactly that. Just think character’s intentions, thoughts, whatever is happening for them, and that’s enough. I use this direction a lot to get actors to stop being “too big” with a performance.

Well, in this film, I’m taking things a step further. As I said above, often when shooting a film, there are many technical elements that can make it difficult on actors. In addition, actors often have to play scenes out of order, due again to the technical necessities of filming.

With this film, I started to let actors play out scenes in real time, alone in the room. Meaning, we completely dress the set and light the room ahead of time, and then the crew leaves, and the actors perform in the room as if in real life. Some of the new DSLR cameras that shoot video make this more viable, as they are able to shoot in largely natural light. But the new conceit of this film also makes it possible.

The result has been up to 20-30 minute scenes with the actors just alone in the room, with no crew, no gear, nothing but them existing in the imaginary circumstances of the scene. This has so far really made for some interesting results.

None of this is new, really. Many people have tried this before. We had some measure of success ourselves with this in our last Man-Hole episode, and our last short, EVIE. And I think my buddy Zak works in a similar way.

This way of working is by nature improvisatory. I don’t sit down and write a 30 min scene. I give the characters objectives for the scene, we rehearse it, work out the beats within the scene, and the actors pretty much fill in the rest.

Even though there are no lines written, we still try to be very specific about what happens in the scene. Usually we find this through improvisation in rehearsal, but then hone it with further rehearsals, so that the actors know what they are doing in the scene, what they need from the other characters, what they need to accomplish, etc. So in the end, we hope that the scene will be pretty tight.

Meet Dancing Pony:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The problem to watch out for in this way of working, is the actors going madly off track with the scene and the whole thing devolving into a bad improv class. This is where the actors’ training comes in, I think. The actors still have to know how to work a scene, how to pursue objectives, how to make the connections necessary to personalize the material. That’s all training, and in my view, necessary to the process.  Untrained actors might be able to get to natural performances, but can they do so within the imaginary circumstances of the scene and actually adhere to the storyline?